In response and elaboration to this post which critiqued Moffat and his handling of Doctor Who - for all of you who disagree with it, and continue to idolise Moffat, here is a much more general overview of why you really shouldn’t, with illustrative evidence from Doctor Who and Sherlock.
Will someone explain to me why the word “stupid” is considered ableist? Because this seriously baffles me.
“Stupid” has been used by the medical community and the community at large to describe people with developmental disorders. My boyfriend was mocked by teachers and called “stupid” because he’s dyslexic. My doctor told my mother I was “stupid” because of various aspects of my autism. “Stupid” has been used to justify locking people like me in asylums, in basements. “Stupid” has been used to disavow testimony given by people like me. My grandmother is what is still medically classified in some places as “retarded” and as a child, was abused by various people in various ways, and when she spoke about it, nobody believed her because she was “stupid”. The eugenics movement is against us “stupid” people even existing, and I consider anyone who believes in always aborting Down Syndrome fetuses as part of this, by the way.
Intelligence is not a measure of character. Intelligence, in many ways, is also subjective. I cannot remember names or act in the usual social way. I cannot hold a pen My boyfriend cannot spell or pronounce things well. My autistic cousin Joe has been taught most of his life how to tie his shoes and he still cannot. Yet, we are all smart in various ways. My partner has a wide array of knowledge, as do I. And Joe is bloody smart for his age.
Insult someone by calling them ignorant, deliberately ill-informed, pig-headed, stubborn. Do not insult intelligence levels. Ignorance is a choice, intelligence… well, it just isn’t. Your capacity to learn, and your access to learning materials, aren’t always under your control, and have nothing to do with your character.
(via callingoutbigotry)
With content provided by suivre-le-vent and
- Stereotypes women using sweeping generalizations such as “Women are needy” and believes that “There’s a huge, unfortunate, lack of respect for anything male”
- Thinks asexuality is boring and the Irene Adler in the original story was un-feminist
- “You have to hand it to the Doctor for dumping a slightly needy girlfriend by palming her off on a copy of himself. He tried leaving her in a parallel universe, and that didn’t work.”
- “And I thought, ‘well she’s really good. It’s just a shame she’s so wee and dumpy…When she was about to come through to the auditions I nipped out for a minute and I saw Karen walking on the corridor towards me and I realized she was 5’11, slim and gorgeous and I thought ‘Oh, oh that’ll probably work’.” - Doctor Who Confidential, All About the Girl
- “And there’s a moment with two Amy Ponds in it. If you’re a red-blooded male surely that’s enough! You’ve got Amy Pond flirting with herself.”
- Regarding bisexual representation “We don’t acknowledge you on television cos you’re having FAR TOO MUCH FUN. You probably don’t even watch cos you’re so BUSY!!”
- Told a dyslexic follower to run their tweets through spell checker, never apologized
- feministwhoniverse
- stfu-moffat
[TW: rape culture, ableism, racism]
people do realize
that the reason a lot of people have issues with a lot of stuff that is automatically categorized under “social justice” and ignored/ridiculed/mocked or told to “get over it” for the sake of “fandom togetherness”
is because they actually experience these things on a daily basis or have been traumatized by them in the past, right?
and that by telling people to stop arguing and stop bringing up flaws in character writing and stop having ISSUES WITH MAINSTREAM MEDIA WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE FLAWED AND RACIST AND SEXIST AND ABLEIST you are essentially telling people that their personal experiences dont fucking matter and that they should “just have fun for the sake of the fandom” and should basically forget trying to discuss anything because heaven forbid someone might scream SOCIAL JUSTICE on them
you are basically telling rape survivors to “suck it up for the fandom and stop bringing up not fun topics”
you are telling survivors of sexual/physical assault to “suck it up for the fandom and stop bringing up not fun topics”
you are telling people who are judged and mistreated every day for their gender to ”suck it up for the fandom and stop bringing up not fun topics”
you are telling people who are judged and mistreated every day for their skin color to ”suck it up for the fandom and stop bringing up not fun topics”
you are telling people who are judged and mistreated every day for being handicapped to ”suck it up for the fandom and stop bringing up not fun topics”
social justice isnt a fucking abstract concept that has been introduced to confuse you
it is how people fucking deal with real life experiences
and when you complain about its presence in a fandom and ridicule/mock/dismiss people who attempt to discuss it you are being a racist/sexist/ableist piece of horse shit
#THESE THINGS EXIST IN OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA #WHETHER YOU CHOOSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR PRESENCE OR NOT #YOU CANT SIMPLY DECIDE THAT BECAUSE YOU HAVE APPARENTLY OVERCOME SEXISM OR RACISM OR WHATEVER #BECAUSE YOU HAVE POC FRIENDS#OR DONT WHITEWASH PEOPLE IN YOUR ART #OR DONT MAKE SEXIST JOKES AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS #THAT THESE THEMES ARE SOMEHOW GONE FOREVER #OUR CULTURE IS FUCKED UP #AND UNTIL PEOPLE DECIDE TO UNDERSTAND THIS FACT #YOU ASSCLOWNS ARE GOING TO CONTINUE CRYING ABOUT HOW FANDOM ISNT FUN ANY MORE #BECAUSE PEOPLE CHOOSE TO ACTUALLY DECONSTRUCT THINGS YOU LIKE #IT IS OKAY TO LIKE SOMETHING AND STILL FIND IT PROBLEMATIC#HOLY FUCK
i have no memory of putting those tags on there but i know they were on the original post so there u go
Ableism must be included in our analysis of oppression and in our conversations about violence, responses to violence and ending violence. Ableism cuts across all of our movements because ableism dictates how bodies should function against a mythical norm—an able-bodied standard of white supremacy, heterosexism, sexism, economic exploitation, moral/religious beliefs, age and ability. Ableism set the stage for queer and trans people to be institutionalized as mentally disabled; for communities of color to be understood as less capable, smart and intelligent, therefore “naturally” fit for slave labor; for women’s bodies to be used to produce children, when, where and how men needed them; for people with disabilities to be seen as “disposable” in a capitalist and exploitative culture because we are not seen as “productive;” for immigrants to be thought of as a “disease” that we must “cure” because it is “weakening” our country; for violence, cycles of poverty, lack of resources and war to be used as systematic tools to construct disability in communities and entire countries.
I’m not even going to waste my time calling out the individual sins of individual fandoms. That’s a whole ‘nother post.
I’m talking about fandom in general. Every fandom. Tumblr in general, too.
Stop using the word “insane” to describe people who are obsessed and/or out of control in the context of a fandom.
Fandoms are not “insane.” Insanity is not a joke. It’s a real thing that happens to real people, and I’m sick of seeing the word ripped from the mentally disabled community and slapped onto the cheap antics of a fandom.
Stop infantilising mentally disabled characters, and stop making dubcon with disabled characters for fluff.
Disabled people are not “cute” or “innocent” or “childlike.” Disabled adults are still adults. Treat them as such (unless you consciously decide to give them a disability which would significantly impact their ability to function at that level). Which brings me to the next point…
Disabled people have sexualities and as long as sex and relationships are mutually consensual, have a free for all. But if you choose to infantilise a character to the point where they can no longer clearly express consent, be consistent and do not write a relationship between them and their caretaker. That is abuse, and abuse is not acceptable material for fluff.Stop fetishising disability.
This goes for “Ooh, exotic!” fetishisation as well as inspirational porn. Disabled people do not exist to inspire you. (This applies irl too!)
Stop dehumanising disabled people.
We are not animals, we are not machines, we are not unfeeling heartless creatures.
Stop insulting mentally or intellectually disabled characters for no reason other than you can.
It’s not funny to those of us who have undergone years upon years upon years of bullying, teasing, and torment. It makes you a shitty person. It’s not funny; it’s insulting.
(via wrtrs)
Source: flappingphysicist
So it’s probably fair to say I’m no longer as big a Doctor Who fan as I’ve been in recent years.
Here are some of my thoughts on The Snowmen.
Written by Steven Moffat
Eleventh Doctor
After the loss of Amy and Rory, the Doctor is ‘retired’. That changes after he meets a young woman named Clara in the Victorian period and discovers a plot involving telepathic snow.
Number of women: Madame Vastra, Jenny, Clara (deceased), Alice the maid, Francesca
Number of PoC: Modern!Clara’s friend at the end of the episode
Bechdel Test: Pass, Alice and Clara talk about Captain Latimer’s children and Francesca and Clara talk about Fran’s nightmares. Vastra and Jenny converse with Clara as well.
LGBT/Queer characters: Vastra and Jenny are involved romantically and consider themselves married. Vastra strokes Clara’s face while talking to her in front of Jenny.
Ableism: The Doctor calls Strax a ‘psychotic dwarf potato’. Clara asks ‘What is it?’ when first seeing Strax and the Doctor says ‘I don’t think his brains made the return trip!’ Digby, Fran’s younger brother, says ‘I think Franny’s gone mad!’ The Doctor continues to berate Strax with several remarks: ‘Don’t be clever, Strax, it doesn’t suit you’ and ‘I’m the clever one, you’re the potato one!’ and ‘You’re not clever or funny, and you got tiny little legs!’ in order to dismiss him. Clara and the Doctor call each other stupid and the Doctor goes ‘Maybe I’m an idiot!’ Strax also says Latimer has a ‘puny human mind’.
Racism: None
Misogyny: Dr Simeon point out that no one would believe that Holmes was based off of a woman, rather than a reptilian creature, after revealing Vastra’s face as if being a woman was more unbelievable. There was also an unnecessary camera zoom on Clara’s chest as she was undressing in the carriage. Latimer says that Clara has a lot of wisdom ‘for someone so pretty’, as if being pretty doesn’t mean you can also be intelligent. The Doctor, while talking to Strax, calls Clara a ‘bird’.
Cissexism/Heterosexism: Strax tells Clara ‘silence boy!’ and the Doctor explains to her that ‘two genders is a bit further than he can count’, despite the fact that Strax has been with Vastra and Jenny for a period of time. This particular line continues to happen throughout the entire episode. The Doctor also assumes Dr Simeon has a wife and continues even after Dr Simeon says he doesn’t.
Feminist moments: Vastra is made to be the inspiration for the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes, but even she doesn’t think she is able to stop Dr Simeon. She insists that she and Jenny need the Doctor’s help. The Doctor attempts to use a memory worm on Clara in order to erase her memory without her permission. Clara is a bar maid at first, but it’s revealed later that she’s in fact a governess. Still unsure as to how either profession helps her be sneaky or climb on top of a moving carriage even though it’s shown she has trouble jumping 2 inches off the ground to get to the TARDIS’ ladder. Her double life is kept a secret for no apparent reason, and it could’ve been used to show the differences between the higher class position of governess to the lower class one of bar maid, but the latter was ignored even though she walked out on the job to chase after the Doctor early in the episode.
Clara kisses the Doctor without any prompting and he squirms and acts uncomfortable during the whole scene. He doesn’t reciprocate at that moment and she continues to kiss him. She continues to sexually harass him when they’re about to go up the ladder; she makes a point to tell him she’s staring at his backside and tells him ‘no!’ when he tells her to stop it. The Doctor makes a deal with Clara that he’ll save the world if she goes with him - sounds an awful lot like coercion. Also, Clara is fridged for the Doctor to get him out of his retirement, acting as a pixie dream girl. She spars with him intellectually, getting the Doctor to open up, but she still dies in front of him. After it’s revealed that she’s the same as Oswin Oswald from The Asylum of the Daleks, the Doctor perks up and takes up a quest to find her again. Clara’s death is also used to get Captain Latimer to be more emotionally open with his children.
Overall score: 5/11
After thoughts: Dr Simeon’s governess as a child insists that him being solitary ‘isn’t right’ - supposed to be an allusion to the Doctor’s retired life? There was some classism as Dr Simeon as an adult promised working men food as a means to get them to come to him, before using them as food for the snowmen. The pub that Clara worked at was ‘The Rose and Crown’, maybe a reference to Rose and Donna? Clara and the Doctor immediately hit it off and Clara follows the Doctor. The popular Game of Thrones line ‘Winter is coming’ is used several times throughout the episode as are gratuitous references to Sherlock Holmes. The Doctor mentions a friend brought Strax back, but doesn’t mention who that friend is (does mention that perhaps Strax’s brain didn’t come back with him). Introduction to the memory worm which is an interesting allusion to Clara’s repeated line ‘Remember’. The TARDIS stays on top of a condensed cloud with an invisible staircase that leads up to it - how?
Clara doesn’t seem to be too bothered by strange things. The word ‘pond’ was used to portray danger, going back to Amy and Rory and the Doctor was shown to be using Amy’s glasses to read. It’s strange that the Doctor gives Clara a key to the TARDIS - when he was upset over the loss of Rose, it took several episodes for him to give one to Martha and eventually open up. He retires after the loss of Amy and Rory, but immediately gives Clara a key after figuring out she was Souffle Girl from Asylum. Also, Clara falls off the condensed cloud to her near death and the Doctor wasn’t able to save her, despite the fact that he already used the TARDIS to catch River when she fell off a building - inconsistent, especially for someone who has a time machine. The Doctor shows a bit of a Nice Guy (TM) attitude after Clara fell, ‘After everything I’ve ever done, I am owed this one!’ while talking about the universe and fair chances. Clara is also portrayed as this huge mystery for the Doctor to solve.
Vastra Investigates
A Christmas Prequel - written by Steven Moffat
(Thanks to the people who made us aware of this!)
Let’s see, we have a Sontaran being compared to a Turkish person, repeatedly, after the remark ‘funny looking fellow’, even though Vastra and Jenny insist that he’s an alien from outer space.
The inspector displays ableism by commenting on Vastra’s non-existent skin condition in a rather insensitive way.
And again, Vastra’s and Jenny’s relationship being used as a joke in order to fluster the inspector from Scotland Yard. It’s hard to tell if the inspector was disturbed or aroused by the idea of two women together.
All of this in the span of 2 minutes! Have to admit, I’m impressed.
((I had a moment of FAIL and accidentally clicked the block button instead of the reply button on this message, and now I can’t figure out how to unblock this anon, so that’s why I’m doing this as a photo post instead of an inbox reply. Because I suck at stuff and can’t do things.))
Oh my gosh you guys, it’s my very first anon hate (and not even on my SJ blog)! I FEEL SO SPECIAL. And you should feel special too, anon, because I’ve been looking for a reason to rant about this for a LONG time.
Anyway, my dear Anon, I’m glad you love Moffat. I wish I could too. I’m glad for you that he brings you joy, and honestly I don’t really enjoy raining shit down on your happy fan parade. But the fact is I DO think Moffat is a bad writer and a raging sexist queerbaiting dickbag, and here’s why:
Let’s start with the easy stuff.
Moffat is NOT a completely talentless hack. I want to give credit where credit is due. I happen to think that Moffat is one of the best Monster of the Week writers there is, period. Blink and Girl in the Fireplace are goddamn brilliant. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead is what got me into Doctor Who, and it still blows my mind. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and The Beast Below make me cry. Every time. He has single-handedly created several of Doctor Who’s most terrifying monsters.*It was when they handed him the reins that shit started to go downhill. Everybody kept telling him he was soooooo clever, and his stories were sooooooo clever, and then he got bumped up to main show writer, and it all seems to have gone to his head. Unfortunately, all that cleverness doesn’t seem to translate well onto the larger scale, because his season arc episodes fucking suck. They’re bloated, hyperactive, incoherent, and so full of loose ends and plotholes you could slice them and put them on a Reuben. It’s like he exists in such an echo chamber of fawning adoration that he’s become convinced that there’s no story too convoluted! No plot too labyrinthine! No season-long tangled web of hints and clues and time paradoxes that his gigantic sexy brain cannot unravel in a single fangasm-inducing stroke of pure brilliance! Except, of course, that isn’t true, and the result is appallingly nonsensical explosions of frenetic action and torturous plot twists with baffling and unfulfilling conclusions.
Frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of coming out of every one of his arc episodes feeling like I’ve just spent forty-five minutes watching Moffat wank himself.**
And then there’s his wildly inconsistent characterization of the Doctor, including the fact that the Doctor is now apparently totally cool with murder and genocide. Because if there’s anything our beloved Doctor is known for, it’s his… homicidal sociopathy…?***
I could go on, but that’s really the basics of why Moffat pisses me off from a purely literary (cinematic?) standpoint, and I’d like to move on to the meat of the issue, or the aforementioned “Moffat being a raging sexist queerbaiting dickbag.”
Basically, Moffat’s treatment of his women characters is rife with stupid and outdated stereotypes, heteronormativity, and gender essentialism, and his treatment of queers, though not too shoddy when compared to the cultural average, still has an unfortunate tendency towards tokenization and mockery.
Most infuriatingly, he seems convinced that he is a paragon of progressiveness and political correctness, and refuses to let anyone tell him otherwise. He throws a hissy-fit every time anyone calls him out on his shit, and he shows absolutely no willingness to recognize his own mistakes or work on changing them.But you don’t have to take my word for it!
Here is an interesting analysis of the gender dynamics in many of his standalone episodes, and here is a fantastic and scathing critique of Moffat’s writing of Amy. And while we’re on the subject of him writing outrageously sexist plots for female characters, let’s hop over to Sherlock and talk a little bit about Irene Adler.
If you’re looking for critiques of specific episodes instead, this post does a nice job of illustrating how shitty writing and shitty gender politics combined in the total clusterfuck of shittery that was Asylum of the Daleks.But that’s only the beginning. Someone runs an entire blog dedicated to Moffat’s fuck-ups. And, of course, his dickery isn’t limited to his writing: there’s plenty of examples of him saying awful stuff in interviews, on twitter, and in person. Another blogger has compiled a handy masterlist of some of his more egregious acts of douchebaggery.
He has demonstrated several times that he views queer representation mostly as a way to boost his own status as an Enlightened Progressive, and doesn’t take the real social issues seriously. In fact, he gets downright angry when anyone tries to suggest that he maybe, just maybe, ought to do more than pay us the occasional cute lip service. Actually, getting irrationally angry and defensive when faced with criticism is pretty much the norm with Moffat.This isn’t the most comprehensive or the most eloquent treatise on Being Pissed Off at Moffat, but I hope this has helped clarify for you why I and many others are no longer Moffat fans.
And just some general fandom advice for you, anon: in your life, you will like stuff. Other people will sometimes not like the same stuff you like, and a lot of times they will have good reasons for that. Because a lot of the stuff you like will be problematic in ways that those other people find hurtful and offensive. But you are still allowed to like that stuff! Really! You just have to remember that you can recognize a thing’s flaws and still like it, and that other people criticizing something you are a fan of is not a personal attack on you.
In fact, criticism is not incompatible with fandom—it is vital to it. Of course people will say nasty stuff about things they don’t like, but it is often the greatest fans of something who are its harshest judges. They don’t criticize it because they hate it, they criticize it because they care deeply about it and want it to be better (Seriously, read those links above. Who other than hardcore Doctor Who fans have the knowledge base and commitment to write multiple-thousand word feminist deconstructions of single episodes or single companions?).
Furthermore, ignoring something’s flaws will not make those flaws go away. Staunchly maintaining that something is 100% perfect and infallible will not magically make it so. It will only mean that you are not participating in the ongoing cultural dialogue that shapes the media we consume and echoes into society at large.
“How to be a fan of problematic things” is an excellent guide on this subject, and I urge you to read it.
EDIT: and a similar blog post, “So, Someone You Admire Has Done Something Disappointing”, is perhaps even more relevant to your situation.
(Also, FYI, being gay does not make you totally immune from ever doing anything or supporting anything oppressive ever, nor does it make you the automatic final authority on all things social justice-y. So, no, I’m sorry, “I like x and I’m gay so therefore x cannot be homophobic/sexist/transphobic/heteronormative/queerphobic/etc.” is not a valid argument.)
*Award for MOST terrifying monster must go to RTD for the Toclafane, which basically make me shit myself in existential horror every time I think about them.
**Actually it’s like having sex with Moffat, but before you’ve even gotten half way through foreplay he gets distracted by his own dick and spends the next five minutes wanking himself, and finishes by blowing his load all over your clean sheets. Then afterwards he walks away to go raid your fridge, and as you sit there alone in your bed, confused, irritated, and still horny, you realize that he never even took off his fucking socks.
***I haven’t actually done the math to see how 11’s body count compares to the other Doctors, so I can’t say for certain that he kills more living beings under Moffat than anyone else. But it’s less the actual numbers than how fucking gleeful he is about it. UGH.
